Back from my Hiatis

If you are a regular reader here at the Hive, you've noticed that I have been absent lately. Things have been crazy here for the past several months. This is a long story short type of situation. Owen had surgery on November 29 to begin the lengthening of his right femur. In case you forgot, he was born with a leg length discrepancy. Specifically, a congenital short femur. The orthopedist performed an osteotomy and placed an external fixation device for the purpose of lengthening. There was a tool that looked a lot like an allen wrench, which I had to use to turn a part on the device four times each day. Each turn lengthened his femur by 1/4 mm. That means by the end of the day, his femur had been lengthened by 1 mm. This went on for 42 days, and we gained 4.2 cm of length. Unfortunately, about 3 weeks before she had planned to remove the fixation device, Owen got a bone infection. It had to be removed early. During that surgery, once the device was removed his femur broke. This was not an anticipated complication, but his hip flexor muscle was so tight that it slammed down and broke the bone. About four days after surgery when we went for his post-op appointment, the x-ray showed that the fracture of his femur had been seriously displaced. Emergency surgery was scheduled for a few days later. The surgeon fixed that break, set it and place a femoral plate and interlocking screws. Again, a few days later something was clearly wrong. Owen, who is such a tough guy and has hardly complained at all through everything, became very uncomfortable and experienced pain each time I moved him. As it turned out, his leg broke again above the existing plate. Another emergency surgery. This time the bone was harder to set and she had to sacrifice a centimeter of the length that we had gotten. She had to put in a much larger plate and 12 interlocking screws for internal fixation. She also released several of his tendons to relieve some of the tightness. He was then outfitted with a half-Spica cast, which he sported for 6 weeks. After those four surgeries and the time in the cast, he made a lot of progress and there was a lot of bone growth. After not having been able to walk since before Easter, he finally graduated back to his walker on June 14. He is doing GREAT! He gets around amazingly well on his walker. His spirit is truly amazing and he is such a trooper! He has taught me so much, and made me so much stronger in the process.

We see the orthopedist tomorrow, which will be the six week mark since the cast came off. I am both excited and anxious to see the x-rays and hear what the next steps will be. I am so proud of my sweet little man and how well he has weathered this storm.